Women, intelligence and interpretation

About the source: Tripurari Swami

Swami Tripurari met his initiating guru, Srila A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, in the spring of 1972. He relates that he felt as though he had met a long-lost friend, as Srila Prabhupada blessed him with his all-knowing glance. In 1974 Srila Prabhupada instructed him in a widely circulated letter, “So you organize freely. You are the incarnation of book distribution. Take the leadership and do the needful.” Accordingly, Swami Tripurari has set an example of one who is independently thoughtful and capable of making an insightful literary contribution to the world. Among the books Swami Tripurari has published are a study of Jiva Gosvami’s Tattva Sandharba and of Sri Caitanya’s Siksastakam. Swami Tripurari has also published Bhagavad-gita: Its Feeling and Philosophy and Gopala-tapani Upanisad. Swami Tripurari’s Aesthetic Vedanta was nominated for the Grawemeyer Award.

Question: In a recent Sanga, ‘Sat gurus and siksa mantras,’ you wrote that “women are not more lusty than men nor less intelligent.” This appears to me to be quite contradictory to what Srila Prabhupada said about the subject. Can a ‘sat guru’ answer this question?

Answer: Srila Prabhupada has said that women are less intelligent and more lusty than men. It appears that I have said something different. However, what Prabhupada said about women is subject to time, circumstance, information available, and interpretation. If statements like ‘women are less intelligent than men’ are to be taken as absolute, then no woman at any time could be more intelligent than any man. Is that true? You are a man. Ask yourself if this is true and answer honestly. Are you more intelligent than every woman on Earth? Is every woman on Earth more lusty than you?

If not, then you have to interpret Prabhupada’s words to fit with your own experience and with what you know to be true. You have to consider what Prabhupada meant by intelligence, who he was talking to, and whether what he said is to be considered siddhanta (absolute conclusion) or a cultural consideration relative to times past when women were uneducated, etc., etc. This is what I have done in dealing with this subject.

Can your question be answered? I think so, but you should know that yours is not a spiritual question, neither in substance nor in form. It has nothing to do with spiritual life proper, and its tenor is not concerned with understanding the truth, but rather with showcasing your own knowledge. Unfortunately, here you have only demonstrated your foolishness.